Puncak - the waterfalls

Before hitting the trail up to the hot springs on Mt. Pangrango, you have to make a ritual sacrifice to the Indonesian bureaucracy. Unfortunately I hadn't brought the traditional offering, my passport, so we had to do a lot of waiting around in a small office before they issued our hiking permits.


Once we got going, though, everything was great. The foliage here is denser than on Merapi; it's really jungley. This wooden walkway takes you over a long boggy stretch. The air smelled intensely green and planty.



Our first destination was this high rocky valley with three big waterfalls. It's a pretty cool place, but since it's an easy one-hour hike, it was really crammed with people. I kept looking around expecting to see guys selling fried tofu or Teh Botol, because it was just like a Saturday afternoon at the marketplace.

I couldn't figure out whether these people in orange were a hiking group or a company out for a team-building exercise. Or maybe some Ukrainian protesters. They were really whooping it up for the photographer.